General Meeting 17th November 2015

1) ITA expresses its solidarity and sympathy with
the people of Beirut, Baghdad, Kenya and Paris in the wake
of Friday's horrific attacks.

We reaffirm our support for Stand Up to Racism
and our determination to resist all forms of racism and Islamaphobia

We condemn the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn for his
refusal to join the clamour for escalation of war in the Middle East

2. National Executive election nominations

Jess Edwards and Alex
Kenny for Inner London positions.

Mandy Hudson for Disabled teachers’ Executive seat.

Annette Price for LGBT
teachers’ Executive seat.

3.NUT national
conference motions

Prevent

Conference notes:

i)that
there exist long established and robust safeguarding procedures in schools to
identify and protect vulnerable children or children at risk from harm.

ii)that
the Counter Terrorism and Security Act places a statutory duty on schools,
colleges and local authorities to have due regard to the need to prevent people
from being “drawn into terrorism”;

iii)that
Prevent training is being carried out in schools and colleges by a range of
organisations including local Police Authorities as well as an unregulated
range of NGOs and private training companies so as a consequence this training
has been very varied in content and practice;

iv)that
there have been a number of high profile cases where young people have been
wrongly referred to the police for comments made during class discussions;

v)that
this strategy is being implemented against a background of increased attacks on
the Muslim community and risks being used to target young Muslim people;

vi)the
conclusion by David Anderson QC, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation,
that, "If the wrong decisions are taken, the new law risks provoking a
backlash in affected communities, hardening perceptions of an illiberal or
Islamophobic approach, alienating those whose integration into British society
is already fragile, and playing into the hands of those who, by peddling a
grievance agenda, seek to drive people
further towards extremism and terrorism."

vii)that
the extension of the inspection framework has given Ofsted power to make
judgements about whether the curriculum
actively promotes the ‘’fundamental British values’’ of democracy,
the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those
with different faiths and beliefs.

Conference believes that:

a) the statutory duty placed
on schools, colleges and local authorities sits alongside a responsibility to
ensure a safe space for children young people to explore their relationship
with the world around them;

b) a key role of teachers and
schools is to develop critical thinking skills in children and young people and
that teachers should feel able to embrace opportunities to promote such
developments within the classroom situation;

c) discussion in schools
should take place in a spirit of openness and trust, with
young people feeling safe in expressing challenge to ideas;

d) there is evidence that some
of the expectations driven by the Prevent agenda and Ministerial speeches is undermining the confidence of teachers and students to
explore and discuss global issues;

e) the recommendation in the
Bullock Report (1976), “No child should be expected to cast off the language and culture of home as he (or she)
crosses the school threshold” is as true today as it was in 1976;

f) no student or
pupil should fear that the expression of
opinion or exploration of ideas
within the boundaries of the school’s equality and diversity policy and codes
on harassment or abuse, will incur suspicion, reporting or sanction.

g) the meaning of “Fundamental
British Values” is unclear and contestable and should be replaced with the
principles of international human rights, and the values and goals enshrined in
the UN convention on the rights of the child.

h) there is a danger that implementation of Prevent could worsen relationships
between teachers and learners, close down space for open discussion
in a safe and secure environment and smother the legitimate expression
of political opinion.

Conference
instructs the Executive to:

i)
call on the
government to withdraw the Prevent strategy in regard to schools and
colleges and to involve the profession in developing alternative
strategies to safeguard children and identify risks posed
to young people.

ii)
campaign for recognition of the principle that schools and colleges should ensure a safe space for
children and young people to explore their relationship
with the world around them;

iii)
draw up guidelines for schools and colleges to address values,community
cohesion and the advance of human rights through education.

iv)
work with other teacher unions, the UCU, NUS, civil liberties groups, faith groups and others.

v)
Issue further advice to members about Prevent and to support members and
associations who raise concerns about the implementation or training where they believe
this has:

a) breached
equality rights and principles

b) encouraged
the racial profiling of students

c) encouraged
the targetting or victimisation of students for reason of faith, culture or legitimate
political expression;

vi)
encourage and support members and workplace representatives to monitor how Prevent is being
implemented in their school/ college and to take collective steps to challenge and improve
policies and reporting/curriculum
practices where necessary;

vii)
work with classroom teachers to develop resources for teachers on teaching about
difficult or controversial issues and consider providing CPD on this;

viii)
continue to inform members about the Union’s position on Prevent through union publications and via the
website.

2. Fair pay for individual teachers and for the whole teaching
profession

Conference recognises the irrefutable evidence
that the present Government’s treatment of teachers’ pay has enormously damaged
the morale of the profession and is causing an intensifying recruitment and
retention crisis.

Conference recognises that:

A.All
teachers have suffered a real terms decline in the value of their take-home pay
of approaching 20% at any particular point on the pay scale since the beginning
of the Coalition Government, as a result of pay freezes and increased pension
contributions.

B.In
addition, employers are now being encouraged to treat the lower end of the Main
Scale, rather than the top of the Upper Pay Spine, as the normal salary for an
un-promoted teacher, with the Government seeking to give employers the right to
bully teachers into giving up their entitlement to be paid on the Upper Pay
Range.

C.Some Schools have also used the new opportunity
they have been given to end any proper and transparent system of pay points and
levels, and are holding increasing numbers of teachers back at salaries well
below those that all teachers could previously expect to achieve. Real terms
cuts to school budgets are accelerating this trend.

D.Meanwhile
housing costs accelerate at a rate whereby it is unaffordable for teachers to
rent, let alone buy, a house in growing areas of the country.

E.As a
consequence, teaching is ceasing to be an occupation that will meet the
aspirations of a well-qualified graduate.

Conference believes that there has to be a new
start for teachers’ pay. It therefore instructs the Executive to seek from the
Government:

1. An end to the pay freeze and a plan to
restore, over a fixed period of time, the real value of all teachers’ salaries;

2. The restoration of mandatory pay scales and
responsibility payments for all teachers whose employment is publicly funded,
including those in academies, free schools and sixth form colleges;

3. The restoration of national pay bargaining;

4. An end to the current system of so-called
“performance related pay” that has been so arbitrary and so destructive of
teacher morale; and

5. A combination of a living wage and
affordable housing that will allow teachers to live in London and the fringe
areas, this proposal arising from Union consultation with members in these
areas.

Conference further instructs the Executive that
in addition to putting these proposals to the Government and the School
Teachers Review Body it should:

i.Seek
support for them from all other parties representing England and Wales in
Parliament and report to our members on their responses;

ii.Involve
our members in a campaign to convince the general public that our pay demand is
reasonable;

iii.If no
progress is made in talks with the Government on agreeing and implementing
these proposals, campaign for and, when there is the necessary support, ballot
for a national campaign of strike and non-strike action, seeking the
involvement of other teaching unions and non-teaching unions as appropriate,;

iv.target
employers, whether they be local authorities, academy chains or individual
schools, who produce unreasonable or unfair pay policies or use their policies
in unreasonable and unfair ways, including naming and shaming them where
necessary

v.Give
full backing, up to and including strike action, to members where individual
employers or schools operate unacceptable pay policies that do not meet the
requirements of the NUT checklist; and

vi.Continue
through our Stand Up For Education and other campaigns to emphasise the
negative consequences for the education of children of restrictive and divisive
pay policies

3. Climate Change

The National Union of Teachers recognises the following

1.Keeping
global warming to 1.5 degrees C or
below is essential if human civilisation is to be sustained and there is to be
a future for our children.

2.Doing
so requires sharp cuts in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions on a very
rapid timescale.

3.This
requires 75-80% of known fossil fuel reserves to be left in the ground.

4.The
technology exists to make a transition to a sustainable carbon neutral society
with gains in living standards for the majority of humanity at an annual cost
little greater than the current cost of annual fossil fuel subsidies, but this
is incompatible with high levels of inequality and a society based on
aspiration for luxurious lifestyles.

5.That
growth will have to be primarily in those areas of the economy that enable this
transition to take place.

6.The
world’s wealthiest countries will have to make cuts in emissions of 8-10% a
year (on top of those made by exporting manufacturing and related pollution to
China and other countries).

7.Governments
will have to put our economies on a war footing and take charge of necessary
investment in sustainable energy, transport and urban planning because the
private sector is not doing what is necessary.

8.This
will not happen while the needs of our planet and our civilisation are held to
ransom by the short-term profitability of the fossil fuel industries.

9.This
has profound implications for the structure and content of our education
system, both in terms of content and values.

Conference instructs the executive to call for:

1.A
national plan for the most rapid possible transition to a carbon zero economy,
including an immediate reversal of the current governments withdrawal of
support from wind and solar energy.

2.The
most rapid possible retrofitting of all school buildings to make them as carbon
neutral as possible (as part of a concerted plan for all publically owned
buildings).

3.An
end to restrictions on solar panels by heritage considerations.

4.A
re-examination of the curriculum to put sustainability and the values of a
sustainable society at the heart of it.

5.An
immediate abandonment on fracking domestically and an embargo on the import of
any fracked gas or tar sand oil from any other country.

6.The
most rapid possible transfer of fossil fuel subsidies to sustainable energy
generation and the phase out of coal power without CCS by 2023.

7.The
most rapid possible socialisation of power generation.

Conference further instructs the executive to:

1.Negotiate
with DFE on a new curriculum and seek support from other education unions.

2.Convene
a working party of all interested teachers to work with relevant campaigns,
like FOE, Greenpeace, Campaign against Climate Change, to find all the aspects
of the current curriculum that can be developed to draw out a sustainable
content and to examine those areas or values that need to be challenged and
changed and produce model alternatives; making 2016-17 the year of the Green
Curriculum.

3.Work
with these campaigns on developing termly themes that link educational content
with active citizenship and encourage our members to push them in schools.

4.Encourage
union bodies at all levels to support national and local demonstrations and
campaigns against fracking and climate change, negotiate with local authorities
to make our schools carbon neutral solar power stations and press governing
bodies to adopt a green school plan of action.

5.Take
this issue up with other unions through the TUC, our international counterparts
bilaterally and through Education international, supporting initiatives like
the German TUCs Marshal plan for Europe.

6.Affiliate
to the campaign against climate change (constitution appended).

4. Supply Teachers

Conference
reaffirms its support for the continuation of the NUT Teachers Supply Network

Conference notes:

1.That
supply teachers are on the receiving end of relentless poor publicity and
negative judgement from the national media.

2.That the
majority of supply teachers are employed by private agencies and are paid well
below the Teachers' Pay Scale and are not allowed into the Teachers' Pension
Scheme.

3.That supply teachers are
increasingly employed on long term contracts with no access to sick pay,
maternity pay, holiday pay, and subject to dismissal without notice.
Constituting a hidden privatised layer of teachers in our schools

4.That
supply teachers have less chance of being employed full time due to prohibitive
agency transfer fees. These exorbitant ‘finders’ or introduction fees are
charged by agencies, amounting to four or five figures, create a barrier to
finding permanent or long-term employment.

5.That
agency staff are often required to pay for CPD themselves out of their already
unacceptably low pay.

6.That
many NQTs work for up to five years as a supply teacher. If they are
unable to find a post suitable for induction, they are forced to leave the
teaching profession.

7.That there
is confusion in some local authorities over the eligibility of agency supply
teachers to undertake NQT induction on a long-term cover assignment.

9.The lobby
of teacher supply agencies organised on Oct 26 by the Teacher Supply Network
and the NUT.

Conference believes:

1.That the
NUT should campaign with local governments to establish a central supply
register, publicly accountable, non-profit making, paying to scale, accessing
TPS so that schools can hire supply teachers directly based on the Northern
Ireland model.

2.This should be a key campaign for
the NUT.

3.That divisions and local associations should elect a supply teacher
representative.

Conference instructs the executive
to:

1.Campaign for a central supply
register

2.Support members in organising
further action around supply such as national and local lobbies of supply
agencies.

4.Organise an annual weekend event
at Stoke Rochford for supply reps in addition to the Supply Teachers'
Conference.

5.Collect,
monitor and analyse statistics relating to the number of NQTs registered as
supply teachers who leave the profession.

6.Campaign
against the excessive introduction fees charged by agencies.

7.Seek
clarification at a national level over the position, and entitlement to
induction, of supply NQTs employed on long-term cover through agencies.

8.Offer
training to caseworkers and supply teacher officers/reps in supporting NQTs
working as supply teachers.

9.Encourage
local associations to make contact with newly qualified supply teachers to
evaluate what support they may need.

10.Offer and
promote training to support NQTs who are working as supply teachers.

5. Sixth Form Colleges

Conference is alarmed by a report from the Sixth Form
Colleges Association (SFCA) that says that government funding cuts will mean
that as many as 4 out of 10 Sixth Form Colleges (SFCs) may cease to be
financially viable within five years.

Conference understands that SFCs have been subjected to
budget cuts of around 25% since 2010, Further cuts of around 10% are expected
to be announced this year.

Conference recognises that the impact of these funding
cuts in the SFC sector has been extremely deleterious, with respect to both
educational provision to students and members’ workload. For example, the large
majority of A-level students are now only studying 3 subjects in their first
year, rather than four, which narrows the breadth of their education as well as
leading to job losses. As a result of these cuts, many SFCs are struggling to
maintain financial viability.

Conference is alarmed that the DfE and BIS are carrying
out a programme of “area-based reviews” of post-16 provision that will focus on
Further Education (FE) and SFCs. The aims of the reviews include moving towards
“fewer, often larger, more resilient and efficient providers.” The obvious threat is that this will increase
the pressure on FE and sixth form colleges towards merger. This will result in fewer SFCs and worse conditions of
service for SFC members. This will also result in worse provision for students;
FE colleges and SFCs serve different needs.
These reviews are intended to cover every area of the country by March
2016.

Conference is concerned
that the process has the aim of levelling pay and conditions downwards and is
driven by a desire to cut costs rather than improve the quality of education.
FE colleges have already been subjected to a succession of cuts and a worsening
of pay and conditions. Furthermore, school sixth forms, academies, University
Technical Colleges (UTCs) and ‘free’ SFCs are not included in these reviews.

Conference is very
concerned that the reviews threaten the future of many SFCs. They come in the
context of the huge cuts to 16-19 education and the clear danger is that they
are a money saving exercise to cover up the damage done already to 16-19 education.

Therefore, Conference
instructs the Executive to:

a.Continue its campaign of opposition to
funding cuts to SFCs;

b.Make its campaign of opposition to the threat
of area-based reviews a strategic priority;

c.Spare no effort in publicising widely the
negative impact on students’ education of the area based Reviews;

d.Consult meaningfully with members in SFCs
about national action, up to an including strike action, to campaign against
the threat to the SFC sector posed by area-based reviews;

e.Support NUT and UCU members, up to sustained
strike action, in colleges in which pay and conditions are adversely affected
by the outcomes of area-based reviews or in which current pay and conditions
are not sustained;;

f.Send messages of support to support staff
experiencing job losses and changes to their terms and conditions.

g.Work with NUS, NAS, ATL, UCU and UNISON to
highlight the crisis in the SFC sector.

6)
The European Union

Conference notes

1.That
the government is committed to holding an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union by
the end of 2017.

2.That
the referendum will be based on a package of changes to the terms of Britain’s
membership negotiated by the Conservative government.

Conference believes

1.That
we should oppose all forms of racism and attacks on migrants - that our stance
should be refugees and migrants are welcome here.

2.That
we should stand for internationalism and solidarity with struggles by workers
and against all forms injustice across all borders – whether inside and outside
the European Union.

3.That
the European Union has nothing to do with internationalism, justice or
democracy.

4.That
the European Union was from its foundation an organisation pushing the agenda of
big business across Europe.

5.That
with successive treaties and unaccountable new institutions – from the Single
European Act to the European Central Bank- the EU has hard wired into its
nature the enforcement of neo-liberal policies of privatisation, marketisation
and austerity.

6.That
vicious racism is built into the foundations of the European Union – with free
movement within the EU for those with the right passports being built on
murderous racism towards our brothers and sisters from the rest of the world.

7.That
any changes Cameron’s government negotiates with the EU will bring more
privatisation, marketisation and racism.

8.That
Cameron and his government will be campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU on
these new terms, and a vote to stay in will strengthen Cameron, Osborne and
their racist and austerity agenda.

9.That
if progressive forces line up behind Cameron and help him win the referendum
they will do a great disservice to working people.

10.That
we should recognise the danger of leaving opposition to the European Union, and
Cameron’s referendum package, to those motivated only by reactionary “Little
England” chauvinism or downright racism – including sections of the Tory right
and UKIP.

11.That
we should therefore actively seek to work with the widest possible progressive
forces to build a different, progressive, anti-racist, internationalist
campaign against the EU, against Cameron’s package and for a vote against
Britain’s membership of the EU neo-liberal big business club

12.That
such a campaign should have as its key themes: No to racism – inside and
outside the European Union; Yes to internationalism-solidarity across all
borders; Defend public services- no t to privatisation; No to the European
Union – Another Europe is Possible.

13.That
under no circumstance should such a campaign have any truck with, joint work
with or share any platforms with forces which espouse any form of racism –
including Ukip.

14.That
were such a progressive campaign to be built and were Cameron defeated in his
referendum it would be a near fatal blow to his government and would bring
nearer the day when it was swept from office.

Conference instructs the
executive

To actively seek out
potential allies in the trade union and progressive movements urgently to try
to build such a movement